Never buy from 2haute2handle!!

Agreeing to cancel the transaction allows the seller to recover the ebay fees. If you received your refund you should agree to cancel the transaction. There is no reason for you not to do that.

You can leave feedback whether you agree to cancel or not.
 
No money has been received yet. You were spot on to say 'If she was so easy to deal with as she claimed-wouldn't have that happened already' because as all of us are aware, even though you raised a dispute and claim with paypal, you can still cancel it anytime if both seller and buyer decides to resolve it between themselves. I never once receive a message from her to mention that she is willing to accept any returns nor to apologise for 'missing' those crucial tarnish on the chains. You are right this forum gets a lot of attention and many buyers do browse through this site before even buying anything...therefore I do understand where she is coming from, I would be hopping mad if I were her too. But if I were her, I would do these 2 things,

a) Contact buyer immediately, apologise for missing the tarnish on the chain, offer a full refund for return of bag and offer to refund shipping too, and

b) State in this link that I have offered (a) above to buyer so everyone can see.

As a buyer who had received such brilliant service from an apologetic seller, I would not only apologise for jumping the gun, but also have the confidence to buy from her again. Not only that, I would mention her to all of my friends who loves vintage Chanels (and I do have many) and let them know how brilliant the seller was dealing with this.

The way I see it, the seller misrepresented her item so I for one am glad to be warned of this and will make note of this seller as someone not to buy from. She can only be mad at herself for not being honest with her photos.
 
If I was out a couple hundred dollars in shipping and authentication fees I don't know that I would really care about the seller being responsible for the ebay fees. The problem was caused by the sellers misrepresentation of the purse why should the buyer eat all the expenses of correcting the sellers mistakes?
 
Agreeing to cancel the transaction allows the seller to recover the ebay fees. If you received your refund you should agree to cancel the transaction. There is no reason for you not to do that.

You can leave feedback whether you agree to cancel or not.

I don't think this is true...

I had a buyer who wanted to return something for a refund recently, and as soon as I received it back I refunded her and filed for mutual cancellation. She agreed to cancel, but messaged me to tell me that she was sorry that eBay wouldn't allow her to leave me a positive feedback. Sure enough, I went to my eBay page and it says that "dispute process has blocked buyer from leaving feedback."
 
If I was out a couple hundred dollars in shipping and authentication fees I don't know that I would really care about the seller being responsible for the ebay fees. The problem was caused by the sellers misrepresentation of the purse why should the buyer eat all the expenses of correcting the sellers mistakes?


I would tend to agree with you here. OP has been greatly inconvenienced by this, it seems... $100 authentication service, plus the cost to ship back... why does the seller deserve anything back? It doesn't get OP her money back, but maybe it will make the seller think twice next time before misrepresenting an item.
 
I don't think this is true...

I had a buyer who wanted to return something for a refund recently, and as soon as I received it back I refunded her and filed for mutual cancellation. She agreed to cancel, but messaged me to tell me that she was sorry that eBay wouldn't allow her to leave me a positive feedback. Sure enough, I went to my eBay page and it says that "dispute process has blocked buyer from leaving feedback."

Interesting. I returned an item and the seller initiated a mutual withdrawl which I agreed to and was able to leave positive feedback for the seller. I did not initiate the dispute though so maybe that is the difference. Or maybe the whole process has changed.